HANDBALL'S POPULARITY CONTINUES TO SURGE More and more children across are discovering and developing an interest in handball – or wallball – as this article by Oisin Cusack, published on GAA.ie on 18 June 2021 reveals. With 170 clubs and over 15,000 members, handball’s popularity has grown significantly in the last few decades. Martin Mulkerrins from the Maigh Cuilinn club in Galway, is one of the sport’s leading players and has witnessed this growth first-hand in his native county which now has 16 handball clubs, second only to Wexford with 17. “I can categorically say that the numbers in Galway have increased dramatically since I started playing, dramatically,” says Mulkerrins. “When I started playing handball in 2004 there was only really one club in Williamstown with juveniles, but now there are 11 or 12 clubs.” “The Cumann na mBunscol competitions have regularly 100plus in them, this would have been unheard of when I started. That’s just a massive growth since 2004 and new clubs are opening and registering all the time.” With the popularity of handball increasing, the One wall code, or Wallball as it has since been rebranded, offers opportunity for further development. The game started in Ireland as almost a hobby in the summer months for players to pass the time between the small alley and big alley seasons. Now, though, Wallball is the fastest growing code of handball, with numbers increasing substantially in the last five years. It now stands on its own two feet just like handball’s two other codes, 60x30 and 40x20. Darragh Daly, the National Handball Development Officer in Ireland, believes Wallball is the future of the sport. “I think every handball community appreciates that (Wallball) is the way forward,” he says. “In terms of opening up accessibility to new demographics and new areas of the country, wallball is key. In the past eight years, there have been 500 walls put up in schools all over the country. These have been all self-funded by the schools as well. We get weekly emails from schools saying they’ve put up a wall and are looking for dimensions for courts so it is clearly the way forward.” Wallball is also the fastest-growing code internationally by a considerable margin with 33 other countries playing the game worldwide. The game has grown in Europe and in America, particularly in New York which has an estimated 2300 courts, making it second only to basketball as far as street game popularity goes. A new World Wall Ball Association (WWBA) has been established with the aim of achieving Olympic status for the sport.
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“In terms of internationally, for handball to ever even have a hope of Olympic recognition, handball associations need to agree on a code and I think everyone is coming together to play (Wallball),” says Daly. “We need other countries to have handball national governing bodies. In Ireland, we (GAA handball) are the governing body and in America, you have the USHA (United States Handball Association) but so many other countries haven’t got the same recognised bodies. “The Olympics isn’t on the radar for now but it’s a nice goal to have and hopefully we will get there someday.” THE IRISH SCENE | 95
